PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS – A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation Persons with Disabilities,190 each of which has acknowledged that a recognition of multiple discrimination is essential to the fulfilment of State obligations to equality and non-discrimination under their respective treaties. MULTIPLE DISCRIMINATION AND THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS At its thirty-sixth ordinary session in 2004, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution on economic, social and cultural rights in Africa.191 The Commission called for the establishment of a working group to develop a set of principles and guidelines on economic, social and cultural rights in Africa. The final guidelines were officially launched at the Commission’s fiftieth session,192 with the aim of “assist[ing] State parties to comply with their obligations under the African Charter”.193 Among other things, the Guidelines clearly recognize States’ obligations to eliminate forms of multiple and intersectional discrimination, which are defined as follows: “Intersectional or multiple discrimination occurs when a person is subjected to discrimination on more than one ground at the same time, e.g. race and gender.”194 At the regional level, the concept of multiple discrimination is most developed in the Americas, where the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and the Court of Human Rights have addressed intersectionality in a line of cases concerning issues such as sexual violence against indigenous women.195 The Court has pointed to multiple discrimination that is not merely the result of the confluence of multiple factors, but rather of the particular intersection of different factors that give rise to specific, qualitatively distinct forms of discrimination.196 For instance, in Gonzales Lluy et al. v. Ecuador, a girl living with HIV/AIDS had been subjected to various forms of harm, including denial of access to health care and expulsion from school, due to her health condition. The Court found that various factors, such as her health condition, her gender and her socioeconomic background, had resulted in the creation of a “specific form of discrimination that resulted from the intersection of those factors; in other words, if one of those factors had not existed, the discrimination would have been different”.197 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has recently articulated States’ obligations to “recognise and take steps to combat intersectional discrimination based on a combination of … grounds”.198 The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on this issue is less developed, although the intersecting aspects of an individual’s identity have been cited in cases when making a finding of discrimination.199 28 190 Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities expressly recognizes that women and girls with disabilities may be subject to multiple discrimination. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has noted that this provision is only illustrative and that the prohibition of multiple and intersectional discrimination is a cross-cutting obligation under the Convention. See Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, general comment No. 6 (2018), paras. 19 and 36. 191 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, resolution 73 on economic, social and cultural rights in Africa (ACHPR/Res.73(XXXVI)04). 192 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, “Final communiqué of the 50th ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights” (Banjul, 2011). 193 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Principles and Guidelines on the Implementation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, preamble. 194 Ibid., paras. 1 (l) and 38. 195 See, for example, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, González Pérez v. Mexico, Case 11.565, Report No. 53/01, 4 April 2001; Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Fernández Ortega et al. v. Mexico, Judgment, 30 August 2010, para. 185; and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Rosendo Cantú et al. v. Mexico, Judgment, 31 August 2010. 196 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Gonzales Lluy et al. v. Ecuador, Judgment, 1 September 2015, para. 290, and Concurring Opinion of Judge Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor Poisot, para. 11; I.V. v. Bolivia, Judgment, 30 November 2016, para. 247; Ramírez Escobar et al. v. Guatemala, Judgment, 9 March 2018, paras. 276 and 304. 197 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Gonzales Lluy et al. v. Ecuador, Judgment, 1 September 2015, para. 290. 198 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Principles and Guidelines on the Implementation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, para. 38. 199 For instance, in B.S. v. Spain, the Court held that “decisions made by the domestic courts failed to take account of the applicant’s particular vulnerability inherent in her position as an African woman working as a prostitute”, thus resulting in a violation of article 14, in conjunction with the procedural limb of article 3, of the Convention. See European Court of Human Rights, B.S. v. Spain, Application No. 47159/08, Judgment, 24 July 2012, para. 62. See also, in respect of age and gender, Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morais v. Portugal, Application No. 17484/15, Judgment, 25 July 2017.